Even though I have not been able to go out for 8 days now (partly because of my wife's fear, partly because of a teaching gig offer I got which has kept me busy planning), we have been collecting information from friends and relatives across the city and country.
Everything suggests that things are going back to "normal" (the 26-year-old normal), plus some aggravating factors.
The dollar stopped at 330 and the black market price even came down, children and teachers were called to resume classes Today, and most stores are back and running.
Hoping they do not activate the revolving.
However, four days after the announcements that political prisoners would be freed, less than 50 innocent people, whose only crime has been to demand the recognition of the majority's will for change, have been freed.
The exact number of political prisoners is not known for different reasons, but estimates border more than one thousand.
The economy may recover, but the family wounds caused by unjust incarceration or even death would never heal. No amount of money (if ever awarded) would repair that kind of damage.
Free all political prisoners.
There are reports of relatives sleeping outside the different detention centers since last week.
They are calling for more people to join them and put pressure so that the announcement becomes true for every prisoner.
However...
FEAR TERROR.
There are a significant number of jouranlists already illegally detained just for doing their job.
And more than a hundred women, some of them sick and old enough to never have been put through this hell.
There is no nice way of putting the frustration and anxiety most Venezuelans feel these days. True, life will go on and many foreign pundits will use those images as proof that nothing is happening, but it will be "life" as we have known it for the last quarter century.